Pune’s main Ganesh immersion procession starts on Friday, September 25, and the traffic branch will begin shutting roads in the old city at 5 am, hours before the first mandal moves. No-parking rules on the procession route take effect at 11 pm on Thursday, September 24. Pune Metro will run without a break for 41 hours, from 6 am on Friday to 11 pm on Saturday.
If you live in the peths, work near Swargate or Deccan, or plan to watch the procession, the next 48 hours need planning. The details below come from the traffic police advisory as reported by Punekar News and PuneNow, and from the police security briefing covered by the Free Press Journal.
Which roads close, and when
Police will close 17 road stretches in stages on Friday. Laxmi Road goes first at 5 am. Tilak Road, Bajirao Road, Kumthekar Road, Kelkar Road and Ganesh Road follow through the morning, and the closures spread west to Jangli Maharaj Road, Fergusson College Road and Karve Road later in the day. Most stay shut until the procession ends, which the police expect on September 26.
- No parking: from 11 pm on September 24 on stretches of Laxmi, Kelkar, Kumthekar, Tilak, Bajirao, Shivaji, Shastri, Jangli Maharaj, Karve and Fergusson College roads. If your car sits on one of these tonight, move it.
- Heavy vehicles: barred from entering the city for 48 hours from the start of September 25.
- Alternatives: the traffic branch has pointed motorists to a temporary ring route using Law College Road, Senapati Bapat Road, Ganeshkhind Road, Ambedkar Road and Sinhagad Road.
- Parking for visitors: about two dozen designated sites, including New English School on Tilak Road, Fergusson College and several riverbed plots.
The Metro is the easier option this year
Additional Commissioner of Police Manoj Patil has asked people to take the Metro and leave private vehicles at home. Maha Metro’s 41-hour run, reported by the Free Press Journal and Punekar News, covers the whole procession window. Two station instructions matter on the day. Metro staff want Mahatma Phule Mandai used only for the ride home after darshan, not as an arrival point. They also ask riders to avoid switching lines at District Court, where the two corridors meet, and to use Kasba Peth, PMC or Chhatrapati Sambhaji Udyan on their own line.
For anyone crossing the city on Friday for reasons unrelated to the festival, such as a hospital visit, a train from Pune station or a night shift in Hinjawadi, the Metro and the western ring route will do more for you than any shortcut through the peths.
Track it live
Pune City Police launched diversion.punepolice.gov.in on September 23. It shows GPS positions of the five Manache Ganpati and major mandals, live road status, parking sites and ambulance points. Patil said the same platform logged about 2.07 crore hits during this year’s Wari after an upgrade. Check it before you step out, since closure times on the ground can shift with the procession’s pace.
Security and noise rules
Commissioner Amitesh Kumar’s force will put more than 10,000 personnel on the streets, backed by drones, anti-drone guns and over 3,500 cameras across the city, with a war room at Faraskhana police station. Police have kept 150 mandals out of the main procession because they lacked two consecutive years of participation, a rule that should shorten the line on Laxmi Road. Dhol-tasha troupes get 15 minutes at one spot, and 112 teams will carry noise meters.
What to watch
The procession’s length is the number Punekars argue about every year, and it decides when the peths reopen. The 150-mandal cap and the dhol-tasha time limit are the police’s two levers to shorten it. If the last Ganpati still reaches the ghats late on Saturday, expect the debate over procession rules to return before Ganeshotsav 2027.
Sources: Punekar News, PuneNow, Free Press Journal
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.